Paris, France
In August 2003... European suffered the worst heat wave in at least 500 years. Many weather records were set that month. Great Britain reported its hottest day ever. Forest fires raged in much of southern Europe, themselves causing deaths. Crops withered and trees died. In August 2003, European suffered the worst heat wave in at least 500 years. Many weather records were set that month.
Although the high heat started in early August, it was nearly mid-month, after hundreds of people had been killed, before the French government realized that the heat wave had turned deadly in Paris. The first person to alert the country that Paris was in crisis was Patrick Pelloux, the head of the national union of emergency room physicians. Pelloux noticed an abnormal number of people dying at Saint Antoine Hospital, where he worked. Like most Paris hospitals and homes, Saint Antoine had no air conditioning. The emergency room ran out of ice and had to buy more from a supplier of ice for fresh fish.
Before the heat wave was over, the city’s morgues had to requisition refrigerator trucks just to hold the excessive number of dead bodies. More than 1,000 Parisians had died of dehydration, heat stroke and other ailments caused by high heat, a disproportionate fraction of which were single, elderly women. Across Europe about 40,000 people died in the heat wave.
Climate researchers say that global warming increased the likelihood that a heat wave of this magnitude could occur. One climate modeler, Andreas Sterl of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, published a paper showing that in southern Europe extreme temperatures — the sort that occur once every hundred years — could go up about 12 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, causing heat waves of 120 degrees. He says other parts of the world, including parts of the U.S. Midwest could also face significantly increased extremes.
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PHOTO GALLERY OF PARIS
- View Dan's Photographs of Paris
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France was one of the cities hit hardest by the heat wave of 2003. More than 1,000 people died. -
Air conditioning is rare in most homes and many office buildings, as Paris is generally cool—even in the summer. One reason why the heat wave was so deadly was that temperatures did not cool off at night. One way people kept cool was to splash in the city’s many fountains. -
Many trees in Paris died from the high heat and dry conditions. In some cases brittle branches simply fell off. The oldest tree at the Chateau de Versaille, where this picture was taken, was one of the casualties. The 321-year-old, 90-foot-high oak was a favorite of Marie-Antoinette, after which it was named. -
Marc Payete was the first journalist to report that people in Paris were dying from the heat wave. -
Saint Antoine Hospital, the site of one of the main emergency rooms in Paris, had no air conditioning. It ran out of ice for cooling people off and had to buy it from a supplier that normally makes shaved ice for fresh fish. -
Emergency room doctor Patrick Palloux tried to alert governmental officials that the heat wave had turned deadly. But most officials were away on summer vacation. At first they refused to believe that something unusual was happening. -
The Catacombs, a vast network of passageways under the streets of Paris, was one place people went to avoid the heat. They shared their visits with the bones of 6 million people put there when cemeteries were emptied in the late eighteenth century. -
Gilles Thomas, a historian of the Catacombs says that there were lines of people going around the block. Many people had to be told to go home without ever getting inside when the caverns were closed for the day. -
Epidemiologist Alfred Spira says Paris had three times the death rate of the average for France. The reason has to do with architecture and demographics. Paris homes are built for cool weather. For instance, they generally don’t have shutters, commonly used in southern France, to close during the hottest part of the day. Paris has more elderly women—the segment of the population most at risk in the heat wave—than most cities in developed countries. -
Marc Garreau, head of Les Petits Frères des Pauvres, says the heat would have not been so deadly had it not been for the social isolation of so many of the city’s elderly. He says avoiding another such catastrophe will require some personal sacrifice. -
The Thiais Cemetery, on the outskirts of Paris. 57 destitute heat-wave victims whose bodies were never claimed by anybody, are buried there in plain cement paupers’ tombs, adorned only by simple brass plates. -
Liliane Capelle, the Deputy Mayor of Paris for Seniors and Intergenerational Relations, says the city is better prepared now. The government has produced public service announcements to be broadcast during heat wave emergencies. On the hottest days, the government may requisition large air-conditioned spaces like theaters and hotels for shelter. -
Gerontologist Jean-Louis San Marco, former chairman of the French Institute for Prevention and Health Education, praises the government’s efforts to plan for the next heat wave. Still, he’s not sure the city is ready for the hot temperatures predicted for the future. “The brutality of the thermal changes we’re going to face, that’s extremely dangerous and we don’t know how to cope,” he says. -
Climate scientist Andreas Sterl, at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, says that in southern Europe for each degree centigrade increase in average temperature, extreme temperatures — the sort that occur once a century — will go up by two or three degrees. That could lead to heat waves of 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
